Thank You Idaho: VFoC’s Official Vodka Brand Found

Oh boy, are you in for an extra special, super sensational treat of an occasion of an extravaganza! You’ve joined me just in time to witness the introduction to you, our fine, loyal, theoretical fan, of my very own all new brand of sugary snacking cakes! They’re going to be a delicious chocolate brownie, smothered in peanut butter and and drizzled with a ribbon of fudge. They’re going to be packaged in the customary bright primary colors that trigger a deeply ingrained response in your reptilian brain and inspire impulse purchases. And since I’m just a little Joe Nobody, making delicious junk food in the washing machine in my four plex’s laundry room, I’m not going to have a lot of money to market this new, mouth wateringly nummy num num, so I’m going to use a little trick that I’ve been pointing out for the year and a half that I’ve been candying vans and vanning candy. So look for my brand new sweet treat in your local grocery and convenience stores, sold under the name: “Tard Farms: GNYUUHH Squares”. Fifteen minutes after my new candies hit the store rooms of Kroger and Safeway I’ll have more free advertising than I could pay for with a thousand farms filled with a thousand tards!

All of the familiar tropes are here in this story of another “accidentally” offensively named thing. The easily predicted over reaction to something stupid by someone stupid, which in this case is for some reason the state of Idaho. The faux shock of the manufacturer, caught completely off guard by someone being offended by their strategically “accidentally” offensively named thing. The one pleasant, yet still infuriating twist in this story is the acknowledgment by both sides that they recognize that this is being done for the sake of cheap publicity, but that they’re still making that cheap publicity possible; which just makes me believe that somehow the state of Idaho has a financial stake in “Ogden’s Own Distillery”, because otherwise Five Wives Vodka is never heard of by anyone except a drunk wandering through CVS who accidentally glances up from the Gran Legacy on the bottom shelf to get a fleeting chuckle from the name as they stumble on past.

The United States' stupidest Tetris piece.

And I expect Idaho is actually making a pretty penny from their investment. Five Wives Vodka, made by the Utah based Ogden’s Own Distillery, was approved for sale in Utah, apparently without a word. The justification for Idaho’s rejection is that Five Wives, which takes inspiration from Mormonism’s dirtiest little non-secret, is that it would be too offensive to Mormons, which make up about 25% of Idaho’s population. When last I counted, which I actually did, because I count pointless things, Mormons make up roughly 1400% of Utah’s population. On top of that well known fact is the much less well known (except by those at Ogden’s Own, you can be damned sure) that the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, which regulates the sale of hard liquor, which are available ONLY in state-owned stores. So when Mormontah, Five Wives’ target outrage demographic didn’t give fuck all about a tasty fire water celebrating multi-wiving, I can damned well guarantee you the folks at Ogden’s Own began seeping excrement, seeing their banked on disputatories jackpot liesurely shrug off the blatant goading. So it was either a lucky coincidence that Idaho decided to be pissed off for no reason, or they’re now gonna be cashing $10 for every $20 bottle of Five Wives sold nation wide.

Jeff Anderson, Idaho State Drinky Cop is quoted in the story saying in reference to the controversy that he himself created by calling this inoffensive thing offensive: “It’s masterful marketing on their part. But it doesn’t play here.” Well shit man, you just made it play. You, your very own self, with your very own action. You made it play. Because if you hadn’t said shit, no one would have ever known shit.

And just co-incidentally:

Ogden’s Own Distillery is trying to make the most of the rejection with a media campaign and sale of “Free the Five Wives” T-shirts.

You don’t say. Wanna check the receipt on those t-shirts and bet they were printed before the bottles were shipped?

So the two options we have here are collusion or stupidity. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t care which is which, I personally love “Five Wives Vodka” and look forward to pickling myself with it as soon as I can find a state approved retailer brave enough to carry it. I generally approve of the blatant manipulation of those easily manipulated. My only problem here is just how sloppy it’s been done in this case. It makes all of the other well orchestrated, masterfully played examples of people really fucking with someone and fooling them into giving them free national publicity just look as cheap as this one, which is just a damned shame, because I’ve already got all of my hypothetical profits from Tard Farms’ “GNYUUHH Squares” going into financing my follow up product: a joint collaboration with Duraflame to produce quick light fireplace logs shaped like the Quran!